The VP’s extraordinary anti-American taunt

Uh huh. In an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE, Vice President and Foreign Minister Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado told Panamanians and the world that what happens with US policy isn’t that important. “The world’s need to sell keeps growing every day. We don’t see how a policy change in any one country, most important as it may be, can have a significant impact on that.”

What the Americans do can’t be significant? Perhaps she doesn’t remember the economic chaos of pre-invasion US sanctions. Perhaps she has never seen any need or desire to mingle with the survivors of those burned to a crisp in El Chorrillo. Perhaps she has never visited the abandoned industrial parks of the US Rust Belt, or paid any attention to what’s happening in Greece.

The VP goes on to dismiss the Panama Papers and something that just speeded up what Panama was doing anyway, ignoring the OECD disapproval, French blacklist and increasing difficulty of Panamanian banks in finding US corresponding bank services.

A Latin American country might well find other busienss partners to minimize the US leverage over it. Honduras tried that and is now ruled by a US-aligned death squad regime. Venezuela’s woes are mostly about a collapse in oil prices and its government’s ham-handed ways of dealing with that, but US hostility has greatly added to the pressure. If China has indeed moved into many Latin American economic spaces that the Americans used to occupy, it’s still insane to literally or figuratively wave any machetes at the United States.

There are policies like the War on Drugs and the handover of Panama’s rice production to US farmers in which our government ought to part ways with the United States. These sorts of things should be done calmly and with due deliberation, not with bravado and dismissal.

One gets the impression that a Varela administration fresh out of ideas is playing a nationalist card. But would the Panamanian people rally behind the economic fantasy that the government is spinning?

Russians and Nazis in the 2016 US elections

Did the Russian government hack the Democratic National Committee’e email server and hand the data over to WikiLeaks? Perhaps. But the top four DNC officials had to resign their posts in the middle of a presidential election year not because Putin insisted that they do so but because of their own gross misconduct, which showed up in the emails but had been complained of well before those leaks.

Is there some law that says that the Nazis’ “Big Lie” technique of endlessly repeating lies until a lot of people believe them to be true is acceptable and anybody who makes the proper association of that with publications and personalities of yesteryear like Der Sturmer and Joseph Goebbels automatically loses the argument for mentioning those who perfected an American advertising technique and applied it to the racist politics of their time and place? The white supremacists say so — but what they say is enemy propaganda to be countered, not obeyed.

The truth is that Hillary Clinton and almost all of the Democratic hierarchy ran an unethical campaign in the primaries, then ran an unbelievably stupid general election campaign. They lost to a reviled candidate and took many good Democrats farther down the ticket to defeat with them. Now is not the time to start the Chelsea Clinton for Congress campaign, for Nancy Pelosi to announce a reorganization plan, nor for the current Democrats Abroad leaders to tell us that they have everything planned through 2020. It wasn’t the Russians. They just need to go. Let the Democratic Party that they tried to reduce to a fundraising list restore itself without them.

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Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein
is under arrest in Panama

Reporter faces 20-month sentence for baseless libel case

by the Dutch Association of Journalists

Dutch journalist Okke Ornstein was detained and arrested upon arriving at Panama’s Tocumen International Airport on Tuesday, November 15. He is facing a 20-month sentence for libel and slander pertaining to articles he posted on his blog about the dubious business activities of a Canadian citizen, Monte Friesner, in Panama.

The substantive aspects of the case show that there is no ground for the criminal prosecution of Ornstein. Friesner, whose lawsuit led to Ornstein’s conviction in Panama, was himself convicted in the United States for similar offenses that Ornstein wrote about on his blog. Friesner was also facing criminal prosecution in Panama, and it is presumed that he has left the country.

The Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) condemns the arrest. “A 20-month prison sentence over a series of blog posts is against the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and the freedom of expression, principles that are acknowledged as fundamental rights worldwide,” said Thomas Bruning, Secretary General of NVJ.

On his blog, Ornstein mostly writes stories about corruption and fraud cases. “This prison sentence sends a signal that critical journalism on fraud and corruption is not possible in Panama,” said Bruning. “Ornstein is being punished in a way that does not comply with the principles of a democratic justice system.”

According to Ornstein’s lawyer Channa Samkalden, who is involved from The Netherlands, Ornstein did not get due process and did not receive proper legal aid during the criminal proceedings in Panama.

NVJ is working with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch Embassy in Panama to free Ornstein as soon as possible — and to ensure that he has access to adequate legal representation.

Additionally, the Dutch journalist association is turning to Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bert Koenders, to raise the troubling issues in Ornstein’s case at the highest levels in Panama. Ornstein is a working journalist of Dutch nationality who currently lives in Panama. He manages the websites www.ornstein.org and www.bananamarepublic.com. The former is about his general journalistic work, while the latter focuses specifically on Panama and more broadly Latin America. On the Bananama Republic blog, Ornstein provocatively discusses background stories and news, particularly in the areas of corruption, fraud and politics.

In 2015, Dutch public-service broadcaster NTR nominated a radio documentary about refugees by Ornstein for the Tegel-prijs in The Netherlands. His in-depth radio investigation “Barro Blanco,” about a hydroelectric dam in Panama that was funded by a Dutch bank and prompted questions in the Dutch Parliament about environmental and social consequences, was nominated for the prestigious Prix-Europa in 2013. Most recently, Ornstein has worked for Dutch public broadcasters and Al-Jazeera.

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The President-elect

by Uri Avnery

The first shock has passed. President-elect Donald Trump. I am gradually getting used to the sound of these words.

We are entering an era of complete uncertainty. We Israelis and the entire world. From shoe-shine boy to head of state.

Nobody knows.

But first we must say goodbye to Barack Obama.

Frankly, I like the guy. There is something noble about him. Upright. Honest. Idealistic.

When the cameras showed him this week sitting together with Donald Trump, the contrast could not have been greater. Obama is the anti-Trump. Trump is the anti-Obama.

And yet….

Yet in all the eight long years of his presidency, President Obama has done nothing, nothing at all, for peace in our region.

In these eight years, the Israeli ulra-right has flourished. Settlements in the occupied territories have multiplied and grown larger. After every new settlement expansion, the State Department has dutifully condemned it. And then given Binyamin Netanyahu another few billions. And the latest gift was the biggest ever.

When he came into office, Obama made some very beautiful speeches in Cairo and Jerusalem. Many exquisite words. And they were just that: mere words.

Some people believe that now, when Obama is free of all obligations, he will use his last two months in power to atone for his sins and do something meaningful for Israeli-Palestinian peace. I doubt it.

(Years ago, at some European congress, I accused the Spanish Diplomat Miguel Moratinos of doing nothing for Israeli-Palestinian peace. In his aggressive reply, he accused me of sheer impertinence. Why should anyone do anything for the Israeli peace forces, if these forces themselves do nothing to achieve peace?)

Have we heard the last of the Obama family? I am not sure. Somehow I have the idea that after four or eight years we will see another Obama running for president: Michelle Obama, the wildly and rightly popular first lady, who has all the qualities needed: She is black. She is a woman. She is highly intelligent. She has a sterling character. (Unless in the New America, these are all negative qualities.)

There was some comfort in the election results. Hillary Clinton got more votes than Donald Trump. She lost in the electoral college.

To a foreigner, this institution looks as obsolete as a dinosaur. It may have had its uses when the United States of America (in the plural) were really a federation of diverse and different local entities.

These days are long past. We now used the term “United States” in the singular. The US does. The US thinks. The US votes.

What is the profound difference between a voter in Arizona and a voter in Montana? Why should the vote of a citizen in Oregon weight more that the vote of a citizen in New York or California?

The electoral college is undemocratic. It should have been done away with a long time ago. But political institutions die slowly, if at all. Somebody always profits from them. This time it is Trump.

A similar antiquated system is the appointing of Supreme Court judges.

The Supreme Court has immense power, cutting deep into the private life of every US citizen. Enough to mention abortions and same-sex marriages. It also influences international relations and much more.

Yet the power to appoint new judges rests solely in the hands of the president. A new president changes the composition of the court, and lo and behold, the entire legal and political situation changes.

In Israel, the very opposite prevails. Years ago, new judges were practically appointed by the old judges, “a friend brings a friend,” as popular humor had it.

Later this system was changed a bit — Supreme Court judges are now chosen by a committee of nine, three of which are sitting judges, two others are politicians from the Knesset (one each from the government coalition and from the opposition), two are government ministers and two represent the bar association.

Five of the members of the committee must be women. One of the judges on the committee is an Arab, appointed by seniority.

But the decisive point of the law is that any appointment must be made by a majority of seven members –- seven of nine. This means in practice that the three sitting judges on the committee have a veto power on any appointment. So have the politicians. A judge can only be appointed by compromise.

Until now, this system has worked very well. No complaints have been registered. But the new Minister of Justice, a rabid ultra-nationalist woman, wants to change the system: no more majority of seven, but a simple majority of five. This would give decisive power to the right-wing politicians and abolish the power of the three judges to block political appointments.

This proposal has aroused very strong opposition, and the debate is still going on.

How to describe the incoming president, less than two weeks after his election?

The first word that springs to mind is: erratic.

We saw this during the election campaign. He would say two contradictory things in the same breath. Say something and deny it. Flatter one section of the voters and then their enemies.

OK, OK some people would say. So what. A candidate will say anything to get elected.

True, but this particular candidate overdid it. He presented a very nasty personality, devoid of civility, propagating hatred of blacks, Hispanics, and gays, denigrating women, not rejecting outright anti-Semites and neo-Nazis.

But it worked, right? It got him where he wanted to be, didn’t it? It does not compel him to go on in the same vein, now that he has reached his goal. So, forget it.

Some people are now dreaming of a completely new Trump, a person who abandons all his old slogans and declaration and turns out to be a sensible politician, using his proven talent for deal-making in order to achieve the things necessary to make America great again.

As a candidate he did the things necessary to get elected. Once in office he will do the things necessary to govern.

Other people pour cold water on these hopes. Trump is Trump, they say. He will be as nasty a president as he was a nasty candidate. A far-right hate-monger. His every step will be dictated by his ugly world of ideas. Look, his first major appointment was of a rabid anti-Semite as his closest advisor.

WELL, I don’t know. Nobody does. I tend to believe that he himself does not either.

I think that we are in for four years of uncertainty. Faced with a problem he knows nothing about, he will act according to his mood of the moment. He will take advice from nobody, and nobody will know in advance what will be his decision. I feel fairly certain about this.

Some of his decisions may be very good. Some may be very bad. Some intelligent. Some idiotic.

As I said: erratic.

The world will have to live with this. It will be highly risky. It may turn out right. It may also lead to catastrophe.

People have compared Trump to Adolf Hitler. But the comparison is quite erroneous.

Apart from their German-Austrian descent, they have nothing in common. Hitler was no billionaire. He was a real man from the people –- an unemployed nobody, who lived for some time in a public shelter.

Hitler did have a Weltanschauung, a fixed world-view. He was a fanatic. When he came to power, people deceived themselves into believing that he would soon give up his demagogic, rabble-rousing ideas. He did not. Until the day of his suicide, Hitler did not change his ideology one iota. Tens of millions of victims, including the millions of Jews, testify to that.

Trump is no Hitler. He is no Mussolini. Nor even a Franco. He is a Trump.

And that may be bad enough. Maybe.

So do up your safety belt and hold on tight for the roller-coaster ride.

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A civil rights leader for our times

The days when African-American and Jewish leaders marched together for civil rights came and went. One of the oldest civil rights groups in the United States, the Anti-Defamation League, was founded in 1913 after the Ku Klux Klan lynching of a Jewish businessman in Atlanta. It’s now an international organization, with a small presence in Panama. The ADL mainly defends Jews against defamation, discrimination and violence but also speaks out against all sorts of bigotry and racism.

Both Jews and Gentiles can and do argue about the ADL’s stands with respect to the human rights policies of Israel. However, we should recall that back in 1985 when Palstinian-American activists Alex Odeh was killed in a bombing of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee office in Los Angeles, the ADL was one of the first non-Arab organizations in the United States to call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice — something that has yet to happen.

Now, to the cheers of racists and bigots, including some who are Jewish, Donald Trump calls for a registry of all Muslims in the USA. But Jonathan Greenblatt, who heads the Anti-Defamation League, stood up before a meeting called to fight anti-Semitism and said: “I pledge to you right here and now, because I care about the fight against anti-Semitism, that if one day in these United States, if one day Muslim-Americans will be forced to register their identities, then that is the day that this proud Jew will register as a Muslim.”

A USA that is in dark times that will get darker needs civil rights leaders to avoid such a registry and many other threatened affronts to human dignity and equality. Greenblatt advises well on which way Americans of good will, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, ought to go in the face of injustice. Let us hope that if such a registry is created by the Trump administration, there will be a long line of Americans at the US Embassy here, demanding inclusion on that list.

Panama’s own constitutional gun issues

Did President Varela get rid of a minister who repeated US gun sellers’ false advertising and tried to make it Panamanian government policy? Good for him. Here the constitution says that weapons of war may not be privately possessed and that citizens’ and foreign residents’ rights to keep other sorts of firearms are subject to regulation by law. The US Second Amendment does not apply here.

But Panama’s constitution also, but a 1994 amendment, says that we have no army and that our national defense is to call civilians up to a militia commanded by the National Police in times of emergency. The constitution provides that Panamanians must take up arms in case of war, and allows no exceptions for religious or other sorts of pacifists.

The reality is that our National Frontier Service (SENAFRONT), our National Aeronaval Service (SENAN) and parts of our National Police have become de facto military forces under the tutelage of US forces whose presence here is protected under secret agreements and rarely acknowledged. Whether we want to openly have a military again is a proper subject to debate when drafting a new constitution. With Donald Trump coming to power in the USA, whether we want to continue this military relationship with the United States or look instead to our Latin American neighbors for training and expertise is something to look into regardless of any constitutional considerations.

But what if we keep the presently prescribed scheme, and try to make it something more than a dead letter? That will, as a practical matter, require every citizen to acquire military skills. Pacifists who will not make war ought to have the other skills needed to be called up as paramedics, firefighters or so on in the event of a national emergency. The ordinary Panamanian adult would need to have undergone basic military training and know how to fire, clean, disassemble and assemble an assault rifle. Warfare would have to be studied in the schools.

There are good reasons for a nation that’s not very warlike to reject the requirements of a working militia system and instead rely on a small military caste. There are also good reasons not to have a military force, and even better ones not to be subject to a foreign army. Panama has suffered too much under men in uniform, both foreign and domestic. Surely there is no perfect answer, but there can be no acceptable one without addressing some realities that are omitted in the present constitution’s passages about arms.

Bear in mind…

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